


Team LOSR

by WhatsMyGrandsonsName



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Dark, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 07:13:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5996448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatsMyGrandsonsName/pseuds/WhatsMyGrandsonsName





	Team LOSR

_A small town that never stays still for long._

“There’s no way you were a Hunter!” the young girl exclaimed, her tail wagging frantically.

“Is it really so hard to believe?” the man replied in a tired voice, swinging an earbud cord with one hand and resting his head on the other.

The two were seated at one end of the canteen benches where the miners had their breaks. The simple metal constructions were designed for easy storage, not comfort, and the girl always started complaining about her sore behind long before their allotted time was up. Not for the first time, the man wondered why he’d chosen to look after this girl. These break times were precious to him, as he caught a respite from the other miners and his abhorrent supervisor. Now he’d given this time up to entertain a pup.

As he pondered the question, he saw the girl’s mother. She had just emerged from the pavilion that the men called the Pink Room, walking with her back hunched, ears down and bags under her eyes towards the food table.

The girl and her mother were both Faunus, hybrids of human and animal that looked enough like the former to blend into society – or they would, if not for the excessive discrimination and hatred many humans felt towards their kind. Due to this racism, many Faunus could not find work in the safety of the four Kingdoms of Remnant, and turned to the roving mining teams of the Schnee Dust Company for employment.

Dust was the mysterious substance that formed the basis of most modern technology around the world of Remnant. It forms on and below Remnant’s surface, and there were many specialist methods for its extraction. This crew focused on underground Dust, hunting it with devices that could map underground caverns, and mining it with enormous drilling machines and explosives – all powered by Dust itself. As well as a power source, Dust could be used as effective magic in a variety of applications, most commonly to augment a warrior’s combat ability. Its incredible versatility made it one of the most prized resources on the planet.

Caverns were the quickest way to find and secure large quantities of Dust. Tunnelling would probably be more effective, except that building and operating an entire mine would require too many permanent structures, and this would attract the Grimm.

Grimm are the “darkness to humanity’s light”, creatures that plague humankind all through recorded history. Grimm have no typical form, but curiously chose to assume shapes similar to other natural animals of Remnant – pigs, bears, giant eagles and so on. They can be characterised by three things: night-black skin, bone plates patterned with red lines on their upper body, and an unquenchable hatred for humanity and its creations. The creatures exclusively hunt humans, and the fact they don’t seem to need food for sustenance and dissolve into smoke upon death has confounded scholars for centuries as to their origins.

As humans mastered the use of Dust and built the Kingdoms to protect themselves, they began to learn more about the Grimm. However, due to the tendency for dissolution, progress in this area is slow. So far, they have determined that the Grimm are attracted by so-called ‘negative’ emotions, such as anger, fear, jealousy and the like. It has also become clear that Grimm increase in size over their lifetime, and this growth is paired with a gradual increase in mental faculties – larger Grimm appear to demonstrate rudimentary planning when it comes to their attacks, while the smaller ones simply charge in mindlessly.

Naturally, this makes Dust mining challenging, as Grimm are often quick to find the encampments of the underpaid, overworked miners. In the past the Schnee Dust Company had paid Hunters and Huntresses, those warriors equipped with unique powers and weapons who fight the Grimm. This was expensive for the SDC and boring for the Hunters, and one day the Schnee management discovered a cheaper solution to keeping the Grimm away. They called it the Gender Balancing System, but in the camps it was called Gibb’s Law.

Gibb’s Law was simple: employing prostitutes to follow the mining teams kept the average atmosphere happy enough that the Grimm simply didn’t notice them. The sex workers were not paid in money by the company – instead, they were all provided highly addictive Dust-derived substances that gave short, intense highs, and forced to earn money from the miners themselves. This way, both the men and the women experienced enough positive feelings to escape Grimm attention for several weeks.

This morally despicable system was outlawed in all four kingdoms of Remnant when it was brought to light. Of course, as most Dust deposits were far outside the protected territory of the kingdoms, the SDC didn’t change their approach one bit.

The young girl, born in the camps and too poor to leave, was trapped by Gibb’s Law and doomed to join it. Was this why he was looking after her? Perhaps he hoped that some genuine positive memories from before that time came would make her stronger. Maybe he was doing it because he was a good person, or that he owed her mother a debt. Unfortunately, since he himself used Gibb’s Law – indeed, he had done so with her mother – the former most definitely wasn’t true, and as for the latter, he barely knew her any better than the other women. What he did know was that the look her mother sometimes gave the girl didn’t belong in Gibb’s Law. Protecting that could be reason enough.

His extended rumination was interrupted by a finger poking him in the cheek.

“Are you asleep, Mr Oren? I’m talking to you!”

The round young face with its sparkling eyes, one blue and one green, glared up at him. The man own face was quite youthful, though his hazel eyes hinted at his jaded nature and his expression usually suggested that it was best to leave him alone. Uncharacteristically, he sat up and pulled his other earbud out, grinning down at the subject of his internal debate. Maybe the real reason why he spent time with the little Faunus was as simple as having a soft spot for kids.

“I’m sorry, Vermi. What were you saying?”

 

_The coldest of the four shaking pillars of peace._

Lyla Wescovitz stalked towards the building like a lioness towards its kill. The Atlasean guards who stood at the doors to the Cross-Continental Transmit System quailed before her violet-coloured gaze, and she knew they would give way.

Under normal circumstances, anyone would have been given access to the CCTS tower to communicate in real time with the other Kingdoms. Today, however, was well outside normal circumstances - with what was going on at the Vytal Festival, the military had cordoned off access to the tower in the event that the threat was worldwide. Even here in the frozen Kingdom of Atlas, where the military and the government were one and the same, the scale of the attacks was daunting enough to impose additional restrictions on the populace. However, she was confident that these restrictions wouldn’t stop her from doing her job.

Lyla dressed severely, underplaying her small chest and focusing attention on her hips with tight fitting grey pants and a sharply cut ivory tailcoat. Her black hair, dyed with a streak of silver on her fringe, was in a bob style and barely shifted as she advanced on the tower. Her posture and walk created a distinct don't-fuck-with-Lyla effect that she had worked hard to cultivate over her years in this business. It hadn’t failed her at the cordon, and it wasn’t going to fail her now.

She could feel her heart racing and knew she wasn’t far from an episode. As long as everything went according to plan, she should be able to keep it under control.

"Ma’am, turn around with your hands in the air.”

She just _had_ to go and think that, didn’t she?

Ignoring the voice from behind her, Lyla carried on. The clack of her high heels on the hard concrete echoed through the square, until the obvious click of a safety release caused her to halt.

“Is there a problem here, officer?” she asked without turning around. Her smooth voice, deeper than normal for her gender, carried a not-so-subtle hint of annoyance. She was quite pleased with the effect, as it drew attention away from the fact that she was on the verge of hyperventilating.

“The Tower is off limits due to the crisis in Vale. We can’t let anyone in.”

“And why should that affect me? Those attacks were in Vale, and this is Atlas. We’re safe here.” She knew the answer, of course, but needed to buy some time. She was running late anyway, and it wouldn’t be long before the Prince got impatient.

“Ma’am, raise your hands and turn around or we will shoot.”

She remained still, trying to stop her hands from shaking and pleading silently that her boss would  _just fucking call already_.

The guards by the door raised their weapons, clearly receiving a signal from the man behind her. Their safeties released with ominous snaps.

Lyla’s vision blurred; for an instant, she saw the guards opening fire and blood spraying from her body. Automatically, her, her old Huntress instincts kicked into high gear.

Springing off her left leg, she juked to the right as the lead began to fly. She cartwheeled through the spray, using momentum to kick her shoes off. This did two things – gave her the chance to actually run around, and briefly distracted the guards as they wondered why any self-respecting woman wouldn’t fight in heels. Seizing the opportunity, she completed her cartwheel and threw a small Dust capsule at the ground, generating a sudden whirl of thick clouds around her.

She dropped to the ground as the gunfire changed from targeted to random, and winced as her pants stretched in a dangerous manner. It had been almost ten years since she was last shot at, and her current attire was optimised to intimidate contractors, not dodge bullets.

Thankfully, old habits die hard. Lyla reached around and lifted a pair of batons from a loop in the back of her jacket. Hoping they still worked, she tapped them against each other sharply. A spark zapped between the two, and she was glad she’d kept them charged every week. The next step was using them without triggering an episode.

The clouds were dissipating now. She heard the officer shouting to cover the edges of the smokescreen to catch her when she ran out. Lyla had no such intentions, as she was currently making some rapid tailoring adjustments with the few seconds she had left. Now feeling significantly colder, she prepared for the clouds to fade and fought to keep her breathing in check.

Her vision blurred again, but instead of an image she heard the faint sound of her ringtone. “About fucking time,” she murmured, then more loudly shouted out “I surrender!”

Thankfully the guards had stopped shooting while they waited for the clouds to fade, and they heard her cry. The officer ordered her to drop any weapons and lie on the ground. Instead, she took out her Scroll and turned up the ringer volume.

The fog faded, and just as the guards saw her very much  _not_  on the ground outline, the Scroll started blaring out an orchestral theme. Lyla stabbed the answer call and speakerphone buttons. A high-pitched but obviously male voice erupted from the device.

“Lyla, what the hell is happening? Tell me you’re inside the Tower.”

“Perhaps you could tell these nice gentlemen to let me in?” she asked sweetly.

There was a pause as the man on the phone grasped the situation.

“Seriously? Fucking hell! Okay, okay. Put me on speaker with the idiots.”

Another pause ensued as Lyla rolled her eyes. The officer in charge called out.

“Sir, whoever you are, you are interfering with Atlas military business-“

“Listen to me,  _dickhead_.  _You_  are interfering with  _my_ business. Give me your name and rank, right  _fucking_ now.”

The officer was a fairly intelligent man, and despite military protocol being clear on how to deal with trespassers, the voice on the line sounded familiar to him. If it really was the man he suspected, then it was most definitely in his best interests to do whatever he said.

“Boris Kajo, Lieutenant. May I assist you, sir?”

“Yes, you may very much assist me, Lieutenant Boris Kajo. If you would be so kind as to let my employee enter the Tower and access the CCTS without delay, I may consider not having your entire life ruined for my amusement. Your change of heart suggests that you may have figured out who I am all on your own – good for you. Glad to see that some people still recognise the Royal House of Atlas in these parts."

Lyla glanced towards the doorway where the other two soldiers were taking cover. Their reaction to the mention of the Royal House was priceless. As for Lieutenant Kajo, his face was almost perfectly blending in with the snow covered buildings behind him.

“Right away, Your Highness,” he said, before looking briefly at Lyla. “I- sorry for the inconvenience, ma’am.”

_Inconvenience?_  she thought incredulously. Before she could say anything, the Prince cut back in.

“Can you get to work now please, Lyla? The CCTS might be shut down at any time thanks to those idiots in Vale.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll call back when I’m done.” She ended the call and flashed the lieutenant an arrogant grin. Her heart was beating so fast she was close to passing out, but she had to keep up appearances. If the Prince found out about her condition, she'd be fired in an instant.

“Right this way,” he stammered, putting his gun away as fast as possible.

“You might want to tell your friends to stand down too,” she suggested, gesturing to the VTOL that was speeding towards the Tower. Clearly their firefight hadn’t gone unnoticed.

An icy wind blew through the square and gave her a sudden reminder of the changes she’d made to her clothing. Dropping all pretences, she ran for the tower without waiting for the armed guard to catch up.

 

_A forest where the sun has never touched the darkness._

Snap. Snap. Snap.

“Do you have to step on every single twig?” the Hunter hissed to his companion. She pressed up against him, deepening the cleavage in her plaid shirt. Technically, it was his plaid shirt, but he’d never worn it anyway.

“I’m afraid so,” she replied, looking innocently up at him. “Otherwise you might start to like me.”

“Honey, now isn’t the time for flirting,” he said. “We have to catch this Ursa pack before nightfall, and at the rate you’re going they’ll hear us coming miles off. And keep your weapon out!”

“I’m lightening the mood, Siyan,” she countered, stepping away and unfolding her glaive with a mechanical clatter. “That will keep other Grimm from concentrating on us. In case you’d forgotten, I’m a Huntress too.”

“Huntress- _in-training_ ,” he corrected. “I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you have, Rose.”

Rosewood Hargrave had only been fifteen when she ran away from home with Siyan Forsyth, but four years later she didn’t regret her decision. Being with Siyan was far more interesting than her life in Vale, and – aside from being an amazing lover – he was the only person who believed her when she’d told him she was going to be a Huntress.

She was a stocky girl, with wide hips and sizeable breasts - not the typical physique for Huntresses. Back in Vale, her father had owned a bakery, and he was adamant that his daughter would grow up and manage it. He was too poor to even pay the fees for traditional education, but he’d taught her reading and writing from home. Her dream stayed with her and at fourteen, she had managed to win a financial hardship grant to go to the Beacon Academy for Hunters and Huntresses. Despite her father’s insistence, she took the grant and stayed at the Academy for a year – a year of being incessantly bullied for her body type, her poverty and her lack of education. Possibly the worst year of her life. But she had been determined to ignore it, to keep training, to realise her dream through the nightmare.

Then at the end of the year, she had received an invitation to meet the Academy headmaster. He informed her in no uncertain terms that he’d been given irrefutable evidence that she had lied to receive her grant, and for the sake of the Academy she would have to return home.

That would have been the end of it, had she not been seeing Siyan. It was a requirement of being a Hunter that they take a team of trainees from their former Academy on a simple real-world Grimm mission. Rosewood’s team had been assigned to Siyan, and at once he had seen the way she was being treated. They had stayed close ever since, and she ran straight to him when she received the news. Together, they had eloped from Vale and Siyan had instructed her ever since.

To be an effective fighter of Grimm, Siyan said, one didn't have to be a stick-thin gymnast or an hourglass model like in the ads – the main requirement was being stupid enough to keep getting back up. Aura, weapons, and Semblances were just extra helping hands.

Aura was the physical manifestation of a Hunter’s willpower. Using Aura, Hunters could block attacks and perform feats of strength and agility that would kill average humans – but once it was depleted, they were just as vulnerable as anyone else. Defensive Aura was permanently active, while offensive Aura was released through the fighting style of the Hunter. Weapons were the artificial extension of their fighting style, usually having both a melee and ranged component. Finally, most Hunters developed Semblances, a mental or physical ability that transcended normal physical laws which a Hunter could use as an aid in combat. The weapon and Semblance were usually unique to each Hunter, creating a massive variety in Hunter styles.

Siyan’s weapon was a custom chainsaw made of interlocking parts that could reassemble into a crossbow shape. Both forms of the weapon were quite slow, but he moved around surprisingly fast in spite of it. His Semblance gave him a limited control of momentum, allowing him to deflect fast-moving objects – or opponents – that made contact with his Aura. Essentially, this mean if he was always struck at an angle, he could never be hit.

Rosewood had ‘acquired’ a giant tri-bladed throwing glaive when she left Beacon. The device attached to her arm on a vambrace but also could be wielded on a telescoping pole, offering use as both shield and sword. While highly flexible and a master of her weapon, she struggled with mobility, and Siyan was constantly chiding her to keep on her toes. Her Semblance was offensively oriented, altering the density and flow of the air around the tips of the glaive blades to generate a focused pressure wave. Similar to a sonic boom, this ability was capable of shattering buildings and sent multiple Grimm flying. In her case, the only ranged attack she had was throwing her weapon away, so she relied on these waves to deal damage at a distance.

Siyan was secretly very impressed by her progress; like him, she was the kind of person who worked better alone. He had also come from a low education background, as his family was from a forestry business, but he had had an early growth spurt and his height and musculature had saved him from a fair amount of bullying. In his case, it was the team-based curriculum that had been what he hated most about the Academy.

The strong team focus of the Academies was proven to build strong Hunters, but for many cadets like Rose it could backfire into a living hell. The groups of four were formed in the cadets’ first year and did not change until graduation. Each of these teams were given names using the first letter of their members names, a tradition carried over from the Great War.

Because the groups were formed when the cadets were younger, most of the groups became friends simply through extended proximity and desire to succeed. Unfortunately, for those who hated each other from the start, there was no alternative. And this had been the case in Siyan’s team.

Their leader – chosen by the academy staff – had been what Siyan might have described mildly as an ‘uptight bitch’. She had disliked him from their first meeting (to which he responded in kind) and the feelings only grew sourer over the years. He had tried to ignore their mutual hatred in team exercises but it inevitably resurfaced. Some small slip up or a genuine accident would set either of them off, and though he knew the other members of their team had resented them both for it, he and their leader had just never made up.

They had all received nonstop ridicule from many other teams, initially because of their legendary name and later because of their legendary teamwork. As a consequence, no one but Siyan had remained a Hunter for long after graduation. He was so glad that Rose hadn’t had to go through the same experience.

Later, he found out that a member of the academy staff had a longstanding feud with the girl’s family, and decided to use his power over her for petty revenge. It was a dumb explanation, but it did at least explain why on earth the academy had approved a team called LOSR.

 

_A world merely a Remnant of its former self._

The chaos caused at the Vytal Festival in Vale shocked the governments of all the Kingdoms. The CCTS fell and shattered global communications, causing panic to spread uncontrollably. Many inadequately guarded settlements were vandalised by sudden Grimm attacks. Across the world, thousands of people, human or Faunus, lost someone they knew in the wake of the event.

The former members of team LOSR were not excluded from this group.

After she dropped another glass of wine from her shaking hands, Lyla finally decided she needed to call her therapist back.

During the monthly trip to a nearby town to deliver their collected Dust, Oren overheard talk of the incident and, curious to learn more, hooked his Scroll back to the network for the first time in years.

In their cozy rented room, Siyan left Rosewood sighing with pleasure on the bed to double check his bank balance for their Ursa bounty reward.

Instead, they found a message on their devices from a number they’d all erased many years prior. How it had got there with the CCTS down was anyone’s guess.

It was quite a short message. The contents answered a question none of them had asked, and created several dozen that none of them really wanted answered.

<Roman is dead. Please help me. N>

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
